THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2021
 
COLLECT
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all things: Graft the love of your Name in our hearts, increase in us true piety and devotion, nourish us with all that is good, and in your great mercy keep us faithful; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 

SACRED SCRIPTURE
1 Kings 17:8 - 16
Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
 
“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, I don’t have any bread — only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.  I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it — and die.
 
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’ ”
 
So she went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
 

Mark 8:1 - 10a
During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”
 
His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”
 
“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
 
“Seven,” they replied.
 
He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples.
 
END


“Let us observe from this passage that with Christ nothing is impossible . . . We must never allow ourselves to doubt Christ’s power to supply the spiritual needs of all his people.”  Bishop J.C. Ryle   


 
NOURISH US WITH ALL THAT IS GOOD
(The Collect)

Two narratives, one from the Old Testament and the other from the New, confirm the constancy of the lavish supply of divine necessities to the Lord’s people from the basic provision of nutrition from day to day, and by extension, to the needs of the soul - baker’s bread for “this day”, and the bread of heaven for spiritual sustenance and satisfaction. The Lord tends to body and the life of faith. Our mouths are fed by the grain of the field and our minds by the grain of the Word. The Lord is our strength both physically and in our personal piety and faithfulness. We digest his gift of food and eagerly devour his saving truth, absorbing all the benefits he bestows upon us. The lessons of material blessing are transferable to the sphere of the hungry heart that can only be sufficed by the pure word of God. We may take heart that our Savior cares for our earthly wants and our eternal wellbeing.
 
The shared plight of Elijah, the widow and her son reassures us of possible divine deliverance even on the brink of despair when resources are meager and on the verge of exhaustion. The Lord commands an impoverished widow whose pantry is nigh on empty to supply his meals when she expects only one meal more and then death. The visible prospects are dire. But Elijah’s God is true to his word spoken to the prophet. Flour jar and oil jug will be supernaturally replenished day after day until the rains return and vegetation revives. The cul-de-sac of drought and hopelessness will be amazingly obliterated.
 
The crowd gathered around Jesus is not as desperate as were Elijah and his hosts, but their situation was similarly impossible of solution. Seven loaves of bread and a few small fish could by no means satiate the hunger of about 4,000 men, and the earnest compassion of the Lord Jesus seemed as though it could not be summoned to practical success. The place where all were assembled was notoriously remote and the journey home on foot would have been too strenuous for the majority of the Lord’s three day audience without refreshment. The disciples were nonplused but in spite of the impossibility before everyone Jesus bade the people sit on the ground as if dinner might be somehow served.
 
The mighty hands of the Son of God took hold of the slender supply of food, he gave thanks, and broke the loaves for total distribution among the people. The third day in Scripture usually portends the display of a revelatory sign from God, and the feeding of the 4,000 pointed to Jesus as promised Messiah. Maybe persons with eyes of faith walked home in wonder. The miraculous supply for the meal of the crowd was more than sufficient, for the leftovers filled seven baskets. 

The power and provision of God is never straitened. Such is the meaning of the miracles. And the collect is based on the premise that in the gift of his grace the Lord is exceedingly generous beyond measure when necessary. He can increase our love for him, and increase the many reasons for our trust, obedience, piety and devotion. He is the nourisher of the Christian heart in all virtue and righteousness. His Name can become the supreme love of our hearts and he can keep them for himself. All things good are pledged to us. Nothing is impossible, even when conditions are not propitious.
 
RJS

 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2021
 
 
Collect
 
Lord God, mercifully hear us, we humbly pray, and grant that we, to whom you have given a sincere desire to pray, may be defended by your mighty power, and strengthened in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
 
Holy Scripture
2 Chronicles 33 : 9 - 13
 
But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem, astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.
 
The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.
 
 
1 Peter 5 : 5 – 11
 
Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
 
    “God opposes the proud
       but gives grace to the humble.”
 
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
 
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
 
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
 
 
HUMBLE ACCESS
 
It is key maxim of the Word of God that it is only the humble who receive the grace of God. Such humility is by no means a human virtue or a necessary qualification or merit for salvation. True humbling wrought in the heart of a believer is a work of grace and simultaneously the flip-side of the gift of faith. Martin Luther describes humility as the other side of the spiritual “coin of faith” (but he naturally suggests no notion of any purchasing power of this metaphorical coin).
 
Faith and humbleness are inseparable. Pride, arrogance, haughtiness is the sinful attitude of man that collides with the powerful resistance of divine repulsion and revulsion, immediately and perpetually, until it is caused to subside by the influence of the Holy Spirit. As Peter quotes from the Psalter, “God opposes the proud.” He also attests that all the children of God are to be clothed with humility. This vesture is not optional. It is the uniform or standard garb for all the people of God and we are to be carefully attired and modest in our internal life and its expression.
 
Likewise, in external ecclesiastical bearing, all clerical costume ought to be modest and never regarded as necessary, or appear splendidly gaudy. Simple clericals can emphasize the solemnity of ministerial office, and prepare the mind for duty and other-worldly worship, but it must never excite the sense of personal grandeur or self-importance of those who represent Jesus Christ. Every bishop ought best be graced by a humble eye and a sinner’s blush - the sheer “sartorial” fussiness of some. Bishops are servants of the servants and those who do not, as a priority, preach the word are not bishops at all.
 
A comment was once made by a high church Anglican that John Bunyan was not to be greatly regarded, as he did not belong to “the proper Church” (institutionally). But instead, the admirable Bunyan was indeed a true shepherd of his flock, as described by Peter elsewhere in his epistle, and, accordingly, the worthy Bedfordshire tinker, was known and honored by his people as “bishop”, faithfully feeding his flock the bread of life and romping with “the lambs”, the little children, of his various families on their cottage floors.
 
Whatever the qualities of genuine pastorship, a key attribute is lowliness. The scholarly pastor is without doubt an invaluable asset, if approachable, but the Lord has greatly blessed men of what may be deemed rather ordinary background and character.
 
Charles Simeon of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, gentleman and scholar, highly regarded John Stittle, founder of what became Eden Chapel in the same city. He rendered to Stitlle, a man who could not write, and was mocked by students, moral and financial support, and owned himself grateful that the dissenting minister took good care of Trinity’s strays.
 
Titles and attainments should never separate Christians into first and second class. Mutual respect is imperative, and working class and artisan parishes are often populated by men of honest and very able minds. At least, nowadays, no Anglican is obliged to address his bishop as “my lord!

Our English Reformers were generally men of great humility, courtesy and gentleness, as eminent and accomplished as they were, and grace established in them even the submissive spirit of martyrdom. One of those precious martyrs, Hugh Latimer, inveighed against the arrogance of certain holders of princely and fake episcopal office. Archbishop Marcus Loane observes in his book Masters of the English Reformation that Latimer became the friend of the poor, stating that “They in Christ are equal with you. Peers of the realm must needs be. [But] the poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is.”
 
God is not moved by pomp and pretentiousness of any kind. Before him all are weak, wicked and unreliable. And he will soon reveal to his chosen ones their evil nature, vulnerability to temptation, fluctuations of purpose and resolve, and coolness of devotion, love and obedience (without me you can do nothing). Paul was delivered from the snares of pride in the highest possible levels of spiritual experience; “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.”
 
However, the kindness of the Lord, after tempering pride, is enormous. In the guise of God-created humility an odious apostate such as Manasseh can be restored to God’s acceptance. We ourselves may find the welcome of the Lord as we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand in all matters and moods of life. The motto of the great leader of the 18th century Awakening in the north of England, William Grimshaw, was “keep the proud chit down”; that is, to humble the childish vanity within each of us and bring it way down low, and under discipline at all times.
 
Humble access to God is the way of the lowly and contrite. It is that beautiful sentiment which is expressed by Thomas Cranmer in the prayer of humble access he composed for the Service of Holy Communion in the reformed Church of England: “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy . . . ” We stoop before the Lord’s table.
 
All our self-reliance, boastfulness, and self-promotion, as it is being checked by the restraints and chastisements of the Lord, abates and bowed spirits usher us, undeservingly, into the comprehensive care of the Father. The mighty hand “will lift us up in due time”, his capacious lap will receive all our anxieties. Paul is able to affirm, “He cares for you”.
 
Pride is the barrier to the Lord’s infinite range of blessing - all grace (v10). Pride is Satan’s key to our manipulable minds and hearts. We shall never in this life shed the horrid tendency of pride. It is innate and always ready to surge in a multiplicity of subtle and not so subtle ways. But God makes its taste nauseating to the mouth and we yearn for its extinction. The Lord Jesus, lofty and lowly, says to us, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” Matthew 11:29.
 
RJS

THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 


Collect 


Lord God, the unfailing helper and guide of those whom you nurture in your steadfast fear and love: Keep us, we pray, under the protection of your good providence, and give us a continual reverence and love for your holy
Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 




The Gospel reading from Holy Scripture 
Luke 14 : 15 - 24 


When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” 


Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. 


The first said, ‘I have just bought a field and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ 


Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I am on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ 


Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ 


The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ 


‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ 


Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”




GRACE AND INGRATITUDE 
A Parable of Lame Excuses 


The man at the table where Jesus was dining came out with one of those statements that evidence trite religion and false piety, the kind of silly sentiment that is so disappointing when it follows a matter of great seriousness. The reference to the blessing of the kingdom falls into the category of religious cliche that dampens the importance of acute and weighty insight often prevalent, for example, in student questioning following a profound address from an eminent and godly specialist in his professional field. 


Quiet and contemplative departure is the best conclusion to a communication of superior quality. Those who try to prove themselves among their peers in public can deflate a carefully cultivated mood of elevated awareness. The spell is broken. We are not permitted to dwell for a while in the charm of the mystery of that which has been imparted. 


The table talk of the Lord Jesus was reduced to mind-numbing mundaneness by the guest who wrongly estimated himself as a fount of wisdom quite able to fittingly sum up the thought of the Savior. We revere Jesus’ word with due deliberation that blocks out cheap familiarity. The fellow-diner’s saying is comparable to that of the woman in the crowd who cried out, after a very solemn and terrifying discourse delivered by Jesus, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you” (Luke 11:27). This is an expression of unwarranted sentimentality at the conclusion of a dire warning. Jesus countered it with verbal realism of the most serious kind, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28). Folk are always tempted to tame the tongue of Messiah to the level of conventional twitter.


As it happens, unregenerate human nature has no aspiration toward the kingdom of God (John 3:3). It is simply a high-sounding phrase until the event of new birth and spiritual understanding. Those not born from above are averse to divine realities. Their entire concentration is upon this earthly life, even given their highest ideals along with their material desires. This universal tendency is succinctly illustrated in the parable of the great banquet. Man has no appetite for God and his ways. The allure and joy of heaven is proffered to mankind in terms of a rich and satiating feast of the most generous, enjoyable and convivial kind. But the appetite among the self-satisfied and contented is not there.


The excuses for absence are unpardonable in terms of social convention in Jesus’ time. The guests were issued an invitation well before it was intended that they should come. The splendid occasion for which they were specially selected for privilege and celebration would take time for planning and preparation. Its lavishness would be stunning and the requirements for the guests carefully calculated and supplies sufficiently available. Organization would be of careful exactitude - nothing overlooked or amiss. When the day of completion was at last predictable the guests would receive notice of readiness and their commitment to be present gratefully acknowledged by host and household upon arrival. It would be absolutely shocking to receive refusals at this rude juncture. But the invitations are not prized by the recipients and the catalogue of cancellations is patently untrue and insulting. 


Three examples are cited for non-attendance. The first ingrate mentions a field he has just bought and he must examine it. But would anyone purchase a property without first inspecting it? No way! The transaction would require careful preparation for assessment of suitability and arrangement of finance. The man lies and even blatantly disregards the preparatory arrangements effected by the host that he has deceived.


The second ungrateful individual has just bought five yoke of oxen and must “try them out”. Would a farmer acquire a John Deere tractor with out checking it over before handing over its price? This is another untruth revealing contempt for the lord of the banquet. The third man is a downright twister of marital circumstances. In Jewish society the custom was to relieve newly-wed males from one year’s military service. It was not relief from normal social undertakings however inconvenient.


Thus we have three defaulters defying voluntary obligation sealed by solemn promises. Their behavior is inexcusable. These are just examples of a general unwillingness to attend the banquet, hence the master of the house orders a wide and indiscriminate bidding to fill his hall to capacity with guests who formerly would never have shared a cup of tea with the nobility - the socially deprived and scorned of circumstance. When these are gathered, the immense compassion and generosity of the man of enormous affluence is manifested in a further command to his servants. The outcasts and itinerants not suited to well-ordered town life, not wanted among accepted citizenry because their impolite lifestyle, rough appearance and awkward behavior were socially offensive or shameful, these undeserving folk were to be ‘made to come”, effectually persuaded by the strongest possible words of insistence, the word of mercy wherever the wretched and helpless happen to be. Likewise, it is the insistence and effectual call of God that brings the unworthy into his kingdom, as Augustine asserts. It is pride, deviousness, and selfishness that denies the willingly unwilling the ability to enter. 


RJS

TRINITY SUNDAY. 2021

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”
Revelation 4 : 8
 
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose gift your servants, in confessing the true Faith, acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and adore the Unity in the power of your Majesty: Grant that by steadfastness of the same Faith, we may be defended from all adversities; through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
 

The Scope of Scriptural Recognition (Examples).
Isaiah 6: 1-8, Revelation 4:1-11, John 3: 1-15.
 
Isaiah 6: 1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two that covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

 “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
 
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe is me!” I cried. I am ruined! For I am man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
 
Revelation 4:1-11
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.  Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”

Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him and worship him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”


PROPHET AND APOSTLE
There is a remarkable affinity between Isaiah and John. They are visionaries of great profundity and descriptive power. They are men of similar experience and spiritual insight into the mysteries of heaven - mysteries in the sense that the realities they report are the disclosures of divine revelation beyond the reach of normal or natural observation. They were bidden to special and supernatural access to God and beheld something of  his unique and awesome splendor, and they each ably relate the depth of the affects/effects of the sight of the divine glory and exaltedness upon the inner life of these astonished witnesses of God’s majesty and radiant holiness. They perceive something of the character, arrangements, and service concerning the denizens of the heavenly realm, their ordered activities and adoring demeanor under the sovereign sway of the Lord of All. Isaiah and John correspond in the musing and message of their encounter with Occupant of the Throne.

The throne of the Almighty was the centerpiece of their visionary experience. Each of them could enunciate their heartfelt tribute to the thrice holy God suggesting a plurality in the divine being that is now revealed to us in the fullness of Trinitarian doctrine. There is enthralling abundance and richness in the nature of God that yields, from his self-descriptive information laid before us, the discernment of three Persons forming a unity of one mind, one will, one power, in a community of social love and action. We now “acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and adore the Unity in the power of his Majesty.”

The themes of Old Testament treatment were valid, insofar as they went, in their own time of presentation, but bounded by terms of incompletion and futurity of final fulfillment. They carried a message to be better ascertained in future installments. As the recipients of the features of the New Covenant we have the hindsight to better comprehend the clues embedded in the witness of the former covenant, and we rejoice in both the teaching and expectation of the past now fully unfurled, and therefore we engage in the wondrous matching of earlier data to the information of our day, which is confirmatory of our conclusions arrived at in faith and reflection (this is that).

Prophet and apostle extol and exalt the grandeur of God, unsurpassably majestic and glorious, arrayed in appearance and attire of uttermost brilliance, and we see the veneration and  homage offered by every rank of angels and all worshipful saints from every nation on earth. Isaiah foreshadows atonement for sin and awakens assignment to the spreading of the gospel. St. John exhorts the service of the gospel with the boldness of a lion, the strength of an ox, the humanity befitting “the man of God”, and the speed and endurance of an eagle. The united task is to bring the ruined to redemption.
 
John 3: 1-15
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus Answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”


I TELL YOU THE TRUTH
Jesus expounds the miracle and necessity of new birth from above, of which we have no true conception and for which we have no sincere desire.

Natural birth and life in the flesh cannot admit us to the kingdom of God. The plain fact is that to know God the Three-in-One and enter his kingdom it is essential to be born again. Regeneration is an exclusive achievement of God alone. There is no human contribution or co-operation, not a scintilla of human assistance, in the birth of the children of God. Each is an entirely new creature born of God through the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. No effort of man prepares for this supernatural birth nor assists the Spirit in performing his act of recreation.

Nicodemus had no grasp of this extraordinary fact intimated in the Scriptures of Israel, yet he was regarded as an eminent teacher of the people of God on matters of eternal salvation. “You are Israel’s teacher” remarks Jesus, “and you do not understand these things?” How many experts poring over Scripture fail to identify this absolutely essential teaching of the Word of God? “You must be born again!” - the extension of the right to become children of God is the prerogative of God.

Jesus deftly draws “these things” that Nicodemus should be acquainted with from the prophecy of Ezekiel specifically: In chapter 36 of the book of Ezekiel the Lord promises Israel, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” 
In the valley of dry bones (Chapter 37) the prophet is commanded to summon the breath of life to raise the scattered bones of the long dead to life, - Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophecy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live’” (verse 9). It is the puff of the wind (spirit) that confers life to its skeletal recipients.

For Ezekiel water and wind (breath) point to the spiritual phenomenon of the sovereign work of regeneration - birth from above. And so Jesus differentiates natural birth and the second birth, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (verse 6). Jesus asserts that believers are born of water, even the Spirit, to which water is analogous in its cleansing effect. Water is a reference to the purification wrought by the third person of the Holy Trinity.

Likewise Jesus compares the sovereignty and power of the Spirit to the wind which is beyond human control and direction. Water and wind are emblematic of the life- giver, the Holy Spirit. These and other instances of imagery and symbolism in the Bible of the Hebrews ought to have conveyed the truth of the new heart which amounts to the fact of the new birth and its radical necessity. Nicodemus and his colleagues, bound up in a religion of “do this” for divine approval (and human praise), missed the point of effectual grace in the divine enterprise of salvation.

In the teaching of Jesus our eyes are turned from the religious quests and qualifications of human nature for a right relationship with our Maker to his marvelous mercy and grace alone which remakes us in his kind and loving role as Redeemer.

 
RJS

THE SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY 2021
 
Collect of the Day
Father Almighty, the King of glory, you who exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: We desire that you do not leave us desolate, but pray that you will send your Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to the place to which our Saviour has already gone; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.
 
The Lessons From Holy Scripture
Acts 1:1 – 11
In my former book, Theophilous, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command : “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
 
So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
 
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
 
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
​
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
 
*He that rose from the clods, we expect from the clouds.
- Thomas Adam
 
Luke 24:44 – 53
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
 
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you been clothed with power from on high.”
 
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
 
*The fact that Jesus Christ is enthroned as master of the universe should be of enormous encouragement to all believers.
- J.I. Packer
 
 
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST

The season of Ascension marks a vitally important occurrence. As the day of special and concentrated emphasis occurs always on a Thursday, forty days after the resurrection, it is bound to be overlooked by the bulk of Sunday worshippers. But it is a joyful and triumphant occasion when the Lord Jesus rises to his heavenly glory and kingship as Lord of the cosmos and reigning head of the church.
 
Reading the accounts of Christ’s ascent to heaven and all that it implies in various references throughout the New Testament creates a huge adoration, gratitude, and trust toward our lovely and all-powerful Saviour. Our redemption is wrought on this planet in the comprehensive earthly history of the Lord Jesus from birth to departure. Every moment of his human life contributed to our salvation but there are several stages to be especially noted because of their key importance and power - the manifestation of the extraordinary concern, calendar and operation of God that demonstrate his wisdom and action for our restoration to himself.
 
We carry all the steps to the completion of Christ’s assignment on our behalf in our minds always, but there is great pastoral benefit in concentrating on central events through which he achieved the divine purpose of saving love. We make room to gaze deeply and intently upon Incarnation, Resurrection, Ascension as towering peaks along the route to our eternal rescue. Great divine events are the sources from which we derive our deposit of doctrine. The living persons and real happenings of Scripture fill us with living truth and godly experience that prevents our faith from becoming dry abstraction and a series of desiccated notions.
 
The celebration of Ascension makes provision for the full acknowledgement of the majesty and magnitude of the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are privileged to extol our Redeemer ascendant as loftily exalted and universally enthroned over all persons, places and powers. All phenomena seen and unseen are under his sway. Our disposition by grace is to exult in his absolute supremacy conducted in the perfection of all his incomparable attributes. His rule is total and true in its righteousness and reliability. When evil is entirely eliminated and abolished peace and happiness will prevail everywhere beyond our capacity to conceive.
 
There is an ever flowing realization of the marvel of the ascension as it pertains to the Lord. But there is an added dimension to the coronation of the Lord Jesus. It is actually participative and as his subjects we are “with him in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 2:6), recipients of his intimately personal donations of grace as actually apportioned by him (Ephesians 4:7) and gifted with talents and ability to render service in his name (Ephesians 4:8). He is ascended on high to lavish blessings upon us, and as believers we are destined to ultimately dwell with him in the Father’s house (John 14: 2). For us the ascension is the pledge of abundant and endless grace; the guarantee that our Saviour will never leave us while we are here on earth (Matthew 28:20), He says, “Never will I leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews13:5). His promise is firm, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (John 14:3).
 
“Never was the sun itself gazed on with so much intention. With what long looks, with what astonished acclamations did these astonished beholders follow thee, their ascending Saviour, as if they would have looked through that cloud, and that heaven, that hid thee from them? But, O, what tongue of the highest archangel of heaven can express the welcome of thee, the king of Glory into these blessed regions of immortality?”
- Bishop Joseph Hall
 
 
Almighty Father and ever-living God, we truly believe that your only begotten Son our lord Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven: Grant, we pray, that we may also in heart and mind ascend there and continually dwell with him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
- The Collect For Ascension Day
 
RJS

THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER 

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, 
each of us has turned to his own way; 
and the Lord has laid on him 
​the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53 : 6 

Collect 
Almighty Father, you who have given your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always receive with thankfulness the immeasurable benefit of his sacrifice, and also try daily to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

THE WORD OF THE LORD 
The Old Testament Sacred Page: Ezekiel 34 : 11 - 16a 
“‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of cloud and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. 

1 Peter 2 : 24 - 25 
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 

The Mystery of Christ: John 10 : 11 - 16 
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ‘By the Lord’s passion the abyss of the Scriptures is made open to us’. Bede of Jarrow (673 - 735). 

MY SHEEP 
How profound is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for his sheep. It extends from eternity to eternity, and he gathers them to himself throughout the course of time. They are given to him by the Father, warmly entrusted to him and, knowing them intimately by name, he rescues them from the estrangement and danger of a life of disobedience and calls them wooingly to himself in irresistible tones of enchantment that lead to indissoluble attachment. Jesus will never lose a member of his flock. He is the consummate shepherd and ever-attentive overseer, provider and protector. He excels in his occupation which is exercised with perfect and constant goodness. He is the Good Shepherd and untiring Overseer. From the commencement of our life until its conclusion his favor is upon us and his invisible hand of divine providence guides us from cradle to coffin. “The Lord will defend you from all evil - it is he will guard your life; the Lord will defend your going out and your coming in from this time forward for evermore” (Psalm 121 : 7 - 8). 

The sheep of the Lord are considered his from eternity and are kept for eternity. “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6 : 37 - 39). 

It is the exertions of Christ as well as the love of Christ that guarantee the safety and eternal wellbeing of every true believer. Here is the mystery of Christ as he is intimated by the prophets and divulged by the apostles: Christ the Good Shepherd has laid down his life as the purchase price for his sheep, and his blood is the seal of their impregnable security in the mighty care of the Lord. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30). 

So intense is the affection of the Lord for his people as it is described by Ezekiel. Known by him they are searched for, looked after, and rescued from scattered places. The sheep of Lord will be brought home to lush pastures on high places, tended with scrupulous care, able to lie down without fear of any peril or insoluble anxiety. The lost and the strays will be infallibly retrieved and everlastingly preserved. The depth and infinite dimension of the Lord’s ancient Promise enunciated to us from the sacred pages of the Old Testament is now made plain in the message of the New, and its profound meaning, the abyss of the Scriptures, is made open to us. Actual believers begin to discern the mystery of the Lord’s purpose of salvation for Jew and Gentile who are enabled to hear his voice and follow him - there are still others from another pen, those worldlings yet to be converted, whom Jesus must bring to himself (John 10:16). 

​How complete is the role of the Shepherd. The Shepherd has to claim us, seek us out, rescue us as lost strays, and gather us into his strong and welcoming arms: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isaiah 40:11). How comprehensive is the tender concern of Jesus for every individual believer. He alone must perform every part of our salvation. We cannot help ourselves but rely on him exclusively. “This why I told you no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65). I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved (John 10: 9).

RJS

EASTER DAY 2021

The Easter Anthems - 2 Corinthians 5:7-8; Romans 6:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22. 

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us:
therefore let us celebrate the feast.
Not with the old leaven of corruption and wickedness;
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Christ once raised from the dead dies no more;
death has no more dominion over him.
In dying, he died to sin once for all;
in living, he lives to God.
See yourselves therefore as dead to sin:
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Christ has been raised from the dead:
the first fruits of those who sleep.
For as by man came death:
by man has come also the resurrection from the dead.
For as in Adam all die:
even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and shall be forever;
world without end. Amen. 

Collect
Almighty Father and ever-living God, you who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ have overcome death, and opened to us the gate of eternal life: We humbly pray that, through your grace going before us, good desires will enter into our minds, and, by your continued help, we shall be able to bring them to right fulfillment; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.


THE WORD OF GOD

Exodus 12 : 21 -28
Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, ”Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ Then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

Colossians 3 : 1 - 7
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.

John 20 : 1 - 10
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)


CHRIST OUR PASSOVER

Christ sacrificed for us is an ever-engaging theme. His was a death instead of ours. A gospel devoid of a Substitute is not the Gospel of God. Whatever form of Christian faith it is that denies the Savior’s vicarious suffering and dying on our behalf as condemned sinners, that articulation of the faith is dubious. Paul sums up our message as “Christ crucified”, and that historical fact is matched in Holy Scripture with the night of the passover long ago in Egypt when Israel’s faith in the blood of the lamb spared them from the wrath of the Destroyer. The true believer is spared the penalty of sin by the passion and death of the Lord Jesus. 

Sentiment and specious sophistication of religious thought in the boundaries of the Christian Church has often attempted to silence the scandal of the cross and brand it as barbarism in the way that a pompous aristocrat repudiated the sermon of George Whitefield preached on a particular occasion in an upper class salon of his day (was it Bolingbroke or Chesterfield?). The cross is an offense to the proud and the worldly-wise, even among those deemed to be respectably religious and who harbor the desire to fit theology to their delicate and pretentious sensibilities; Christ our passover is cherished by the poor in spirit, frightened and humbled by the demands of the law, and the awesome holiness of God. “For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). 

It is sheer pride that quarrels with the biblical way of salvation. Pride and human blindness fail to reckon on the depth and extent of our corruption and wickedness and that we have forfeited any entitlement to life, temporal and eternal. Intellectual and moral arrogance occupy a prime seat at the heart of the nominal people of God. Therefore, sovereign grace is despised and the cross is regarded as contemptible. We can only be spared destruction through the way that divine compassion has devised - the substitutionary death and sacrifice of a loving and voluntary victim embracing death in our stead. We cannot pretty-up Calvary. Only convinced sinners discover its wonderful attraction.


ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD

Where justification by faith (through the blood-shedding) has been wrought in the heart of the guilty there is the effect of renewed minds and holy life: not the poisonous notion of already attained perfection, but an hatred for and constant struggle with remaining sin, which keeps us lowly before God and neighbor in spirit, and ever reliant upon freely available cleansing and restorative grace. 

The words of our seventeenth Article are beautiful and true: “The godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things”, exactly as Paul exhorts “Set your minds above, not on earthly things”(Colossians 3: 2). True trust and confidence in Christ is evidence of his resurrection life within us which engenders reverent and “high and heavenly thoughts”, and virtuous living and action. Holiness strives to expel the vileness of the old nature. Growing goodness is a complementary and essential quality donated to the disposition of faith. 

There is no indifference to righteousness in the heart of those born from above through supernatural re-creation. We used to walk in evil ways but now we detest them and mourn when we slip inadvertently, or stray stubbornly. Our frailty and fluctuations frustrate us and bring us to contrition. Continual repentance is a featurein life with the risen Christ. 


THE GATE OF ETERNAL LIFE

Exalted views of the Lord Jesus are sure fruits of authentic Easter faith within us. We participate in his resurrection through new status, sensibility, behavior and destiny. Our new being has begun and will be complete in the world to come. As sacrifice, Christ procures our new and blessed life - sins forgiven, amends are made to God through him, and fellowship restored. In Christ and because of him we are alive to God, aware of him, enjoying him, recipients of his favor. The crowning blessing bestowed through the Lord Jesus is to enter, by his mercy and merit, the gate of eternal life. 

The misery of sin has been taken away, that barrier to life and the dread portal to the realm of death. Unimaginable bliss is our prospect in the inextinguishable joy of heaven and its perpetual friendly and cheering light. The face of the Lord will shine endlessly upon us and his presence will surround and infill us, causing us to glow more brightly than angels. 

The thrill of the gospel is that Christ has “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers” (Te Deum). The Easter Season, the Resurrection Festival, opens before us, and displays, every dimension of our Christ-wrought rescue and redemption: Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us: therefore let us celebrate the feast. Through him we have been spared. See yourselves therefore as dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. We have entered a new existence. Christ admits us to everlasting life. Our cause for exceeding joy. All this is true, real and assured because “He is Risen!” 

Christ crucified draw you to himself, to find in him a sure ground for faith, a firm support for hope, and the assurance of sins forgiven. Blessing for Holy Week.

RJS

THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY


Collect.
Lord God, we ask you to keep your household, the Church, continually in your true faith and devotion; so that that they who rely only upon the hope of your heavenly grace, may always be defended by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 

Holy Scripture: Colossians 3 : 12 - 17
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
 
Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 

AS GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE: Holy Aspiration.
The apostle’s opening adverb, “therefore”, suggests such mighty consequences as a result of our status as believers in the gospel of Christ. His explication leaves us breathless, if we heed it thoroughly. He speaks initially of the highest privilege we may possibly conceive, and then he adumbrates our qualities and practice as God’s dear people. His first remark places us within the personal possession of God, a fact that extolls the greatest force in the universe, and mentions the greatest blessing we could ever receive - the unearned, undeserved, unmeasurable grace of God. There is no more fortunate consequence of the gift of faith than to know that we are in the grip of eternal divine love that destined us for the favor, fellowship, and family of God - the Lord’s selection of his people.
 
Electing love through and in Jesus Christ is the action of maximal mercy, kindness, generosity and forgiveness on the part of the Lord; infinite x infinite. Superabundant liberality beyond calculation and comprehension has settled upon us. In Christ, God has determined to donate to the elect his all, and that all will not be exhausted throughout all eternity. The choice of his people is God’s magnificent distinguishing magnanimity that he minded to manifest from the Beginning in the calling of the elect, those associated with the Son and considered for union with him before the dawn of time. Believers are marked out by everlasting love for everlasting life in the sovereign decision of God.
 
It is this priceless intent and purpose of the Lord that conditions every iota of meaning in St Paul’s rousing exhortation to the Christians at Colosse. Moving from the astonishing initiative of God in predestination (a theme for the comfort of Christians, and not for speculation, Article 17), Paul advances into the calling of the saints to heartfelt imitation of the goodness of God that has sought and secured them for the uninterrupted knowledge of him and the bliss of heaven. Conversion is the entrance to virtuous character in the likeness of Jesus. Being dearly loved, with holiness of heart wrought by grace, the chosen are reminded and motivated by the apostle to be a living demonstration of loving-kindness to each other that ultimately should overflow as wooing power to draw outsiders into the people of God also. Believers are enrolled as those who attract others to the world’s Redeemer. Evidence of this attraction should shine forth from the life of the church as proof of the certainty of God’s graciousness to all who seek and desire him. The aim of redemption is replication of Christ-likeness in the persons of the redeemed. All these marvelously graced lives bring glory to God.

“Clothe yourselves with compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness and patience”: Our dress, or habitual outward demeanor, is to be representative of our sincere interior disposition, and we are to reflect the preferred traits of the Divine Being in our sanctified relationships as fellow children of God. It may therefore be asked, do we exercise in our church gatherings, and the emergence of differences, these attitudes to the fullest extent possible, and with reasonable consideration of ethical permission?

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another”: Grievances occur so swiftly. They can be sown by hasty judgments that are ill-informed, and situations that are misconstrued. Wounds may be felt through faulty reception in certain individuals caused by negative mood at a given time, and heightened sensitivity can exaggerate the sharpness of perceived barbs. Misunderstandings abound in the life of congregations. Rumors gain credibility too readily, and the tendency of the old nature to criticism is often not regulated or restrained. Sin is at work intentionally and unintentionally in any Christian company. Paul brings to mind the vital reality of unlimited forgiveness that God extends toward his own by sovereign choice. As hard, gradual, and painful as it may feel, a like forgiveness and forbearance is to be extended to others among us where contrition replaces stubbornness and pride. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” is the premiss of our mutual behavior. There should always be the willingness to forgive, conditioned, of course, by the offender’s contrition. It is spiritually harmful to declare the word of forgiveness prematurely when scope for repentance and the seriousness of offense is disallowed to the consciousness of the wrongdoer with responsibility to achieve reconciliation.
 
All virtues are valueless without love. Love, that genuine respectful regard for another that avoids any injury toward them, harbors every desire to benefit them, and should lead to the cherishing of one observed to belong to the Lord, should crown every thought and overture directed toward a fellow believer on the ground that the most supreme love of all has been unconditionally conferred upon us. How can we withhold that which we have so freely received? Love, as Paul acknowledges and avers, has the binding effect of bringing the people of God into perfect unity, and the peace granted by the Lord Jesus to his people should prevail among them. All these things require self-denial and self-giving that only supernatural ability from God can achieve, but our aim should be high, and our self-examination candid and thorough at all times. For in all things we are to bring honor to the name of the Lord Jesus, our very strongest incentive in the lives we live through him. Paul brings us to sober assessment of the quality of our relationships, the earnestness of our gratitude to the merciful will of God and its ensuing obedience. None can reflect on the apostolic exhortation without sorrow for falling short and with accompanying resolve for amendment of life, and this capacity can only be enabled by his doing within us.

RJS

THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Collect
Lord God, you who know that we are placed in the midst of so many and so great dangers, and that because of our human weakness we cannot always stand upright: Grant us such a measure of strength and protection that we may be supported in all dangers, and be carried through all temptations; through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.

Matthew 8 : 23 - 27
Jesus Calms the Storm
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Meditation
The Lord Jesus displays his dominion over the forces of nature. The God-man in the boat had designed the journey across the lake to be a voyage of understanding for the disciples. It was not to be a peaceful crossing. Providence had decreed not just a run-of-the-mill storm that causes no great panic, but a furious storm that descended without warning. Un-forecasted terror gripped the seasoned sailors who normally could handle
their fishing vessels with great expertise. Waves easily mounted the sides of their boat threatening to fill it with an unwelcome volume of water and sink it. The disciples instantly sensed the danger with unaccustomed alarm. But Jesus was unaware and continued sleeping. His former encounter with a crowd tired him and he needed refreshment. His sleep was so sound that the raging storm did not disturb him. The
disciples rising reliance upon the master was quickly awakened.

They woke Jesus with urgent appeals for safety. They were embroiled in a life or death situation and they had sufficient trust in the power of Jesus to rescue them. “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown?” A disastrous death was imminent. No sailor of any kind underestimates the danger of water. These hardy and experienced men who derived their living from the lake were seriously afraid of the fate that surrounded them - demise by storm stronger than any they had ever experienced.

It was a case of the Lord educating his folk by extreme measures. Experts and people of exceptional accomplishment can tend to rest on heir abilities to cope. Providence sometimes issues a surprise that shakes us out of our presumptuousness. None of us are
omni-competent or invulnerable. There is always something that will scare the greatest hero out of their wits. The disciples quickly learned that they were mere men dependent on more than their acquired skills or inherited abilities. When it comes to the crunch many of us learn our dependence on divine action and intervention. Humans are not supermen (Hyper-men) as much as some males may retain that boyish notion.

But the disciples were taught much more about themselves in the midst of the tempest. Mere men they certainly were, but mere man Jesus was not. “The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” The raging
storm revealed the unrestricted authority of the Son God. Our self-trust, our creature-trust in our fellows must subside as we arrive at an absolute trust (never fully gained on earth) in the Saviour who ever sails with us. How often has he stood with us through the storms of life? How often could he address us with those words, “You of little faith, why are you afraid”.

This is not simply a cosy story to soothe the timid or apathetic. It is a call to courage in our confidence in God when our stoutheartedness falls apart and we tremble in great fear. It points to our ultimate defense, our only deliverer Jesus Christ. Jesus’ power prevails everywhere, always. O, for that certitude!

*The sea of life: Blessed are all your saints, O, God, and King, who have travelled over the tempestuous sea of this life and have made the harbor of peace and felicity. Watch over us who are still on dangerous voyage. Frail is our vessel, and the ocean is wide; but as in your mercy you have set our course, so pilot the vessel of our life towards the everlasting shore of peace, and bring us at last to the quiet haven of our heart’s desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. St. Augustine

Matthew 8: 28-34
Jesus Restores Two Demon-Possessed Men
When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”

Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

Meditation
Jesus' lake crossing was dual purpose. He had demonstrated his power to govern nature (of which he was Creator), now he will show his supremacy over the realm of the demonic. He transfers himself from the stormy elements of wind and wave to the dark realm of mental derangement and terrifying physical violence. He elects to arrive at a place too terrible for folk to pass by and notice, and he encounters the fearsome territory
and fury of men inhabited by evil spirits. Their desperate depth of depravity and dangerousness is signified by their frightening emergence from the desolate tombs of the dead. These men are deemed beyond all help and hope. They stir revulsion and dread in every heart that hears of them. What an unimaginable and miserable destiny.

But Jesus went there to meet these prisoners and practitioners of evil. He was sovereign over the demonic oppressors to liberate them, and powerful enough to banish the devil’s minions. The Lord Jesus proved himself superior to all powers, natural and supernatural, and all that is deadly and destructive. He is the strong man and strong Son of God and our Refuge from all that threatens to harm us. He is our all-round and abiding security. Heaven will reveal the times and types of his rescue of us in a hazardous life. Yet, there are those for whom Jesus is the principal upsetter of a preferred way of life that they cannot ever envision quitting. They bid him to depart from them. They deem him unprofitable to their accustomed desires. They are the ones to be pitied in life’s story.

RJS

 Matthew 8 : 5 -13

For the Christian, facts are the foundation of sure knowledge and renewed life in union with Jesus Christ. We are folk of conviction as to the truth of divine revelation laid before us in Holy Scripture. Our confidence and abiding hope are lodged in God the Three-in-One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A reality derived from historical record and insight into the invisible sustains and surrounds us. We are inhabitants of the realm of faith with a grasp of verities illuminated only by the light and manifestation of things as they really are by the Spirit of Christ. The Word of God shapes our world view - our understanding of this world, and our incomplete apprehension of the world to come. A God-given certainty accompanies us through life and into the enjoyment of life everlasting. Solid truth surrounds and sustains us. The divine message in the Lord Jesus, Son of God, guarantees an adequacy of accurate perception to the mind and the guidance of the Comforter ensures our safe journey toward eternity.

   The substance of our faith is objective. Its content is communicated and confirmed by God himself at work within us. The basis of our confidence is infallible. But not so is our behavior. We are frail and fallible to a high degree. If God and his truth are immutable we are creatures of fluctuation determined by mood. By mood means that we vary in our apprehension and sensibility toward matters and our attitude and actions are not yet consistent with the will and character of God. Within our subjective selves there is a dissonance with the nature and ways of God. There will be such discord until we are fully delivered from self, sin, and the ways of this world. We are not yet perfect. That is our prospect in paradise. Our holiness and wholeness are partial. The exhortations and encouragements of Scripture, prophetic and apostolic, are essential. We are not only to be instructed in the truths of the Lord; we need to be educated as to being true in the Lord. Life here, under God and with God, is developmental. It is a process of healing. Scripture is comforting and corrective in accordance with the divine compassion.

   There are many lapses in the lives of the saints. Some of these are evident but many more are secrets confined to the deepest crypt at the core of our being, driving our secret conceptions and imaginings, and often not discovered or detected by ourselves. Jeremiah, that man of deep inner disturbances, declares that we cannot know ourselves exhaustively. “The heart is deceitful: above all things: and beyond cure: Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9). Knowing this predicament the prophet wails before the Lord: “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. Correct me Lord, but only with justice — not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing’ (10:23-24).

   Hence the biblical insistence on justness of outlook and of life. Belief and behavior must be right with a divinely determined fairness of approach to life, evident in active roles and relationships. The God of grace will make us gracious gradually as we discern our continual need for supernatural assistance. “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). This is an enormous responsibility so contrary to our self-serving ambitions (often disguised). Harmony is a collaborative exercise among the people of God. It is godly, sensible self-denial that promotes peace and harmony. The vengeful heart, wounded unjustly or reacting from offended pride, must struggle through the donation of grace not to provoke conflict and division. Paul does not hector the family of God. It is evident that he sees the problems among folk that are difficult to surmount given the residue within us of the old Adamic nature that still fosters the evil of the curse. He ardently desires the wellbeing of believers individually and collectively (an ecclesiology we have not quite grasped).
 
  We are a congregation, all believers, gathered to the Lord, not separate individuals occasionally swarming together, all busy bees seeking our own advantages and forgetting our obligation of mutual care and service, shared respect and patience, love and fairness (justice). Paul is familiar with the instant instincts of human nature that rush to the fore of our minds and manner. With God’s strong aid we must, with deliberation, curb and quash the evils that still prompt our old, familiar inclinations. May God supply his grace in abundance. May he ever be accessible to our urgent plea for righteousness, and may we always be alert to our total dependence upon him.

RJS